March 29, 1999
XML buoys databases for corporate markets
Web and XML keep object-oriented databases afloat in a world gone relational
By Brett Mendel
For some time, the object-oriented database market has languished in a sea of arcane development requirements.
But thanks to the emerging Web document standard designed to continue where HTML leaves off -- Extensible Markup Language (XML) -- proponents of object-oriented DBMSes (ODBMSes) are now thinking that their ship has come in.
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Until now, ODBMSes have been largely confined to highly technical niche markets and corporate settings with the resources to assemble sophisticated object-oriented systems.However, XML with its use of tags to describe data types, could be seen as the perfect match for similarly enabled ODBMSes.
"The object-oriented approach does address the increasing complexity of business applications, but it is so abstract that it is beyond the abilities of most people to conceptualize and execute," said Carl Olofson, research director at International Data Corp., (IDC) in Framingham, Mass.
Because ODBMSes have been closely tied to object-oriented languages and their use has generally required proficiency in object-oriented languages and development techniques, some IT departments have instead turned to packaged applications and data warehousing products, Olofson explained.
"All this has tended to leave object databases out in the cold," Olofson said.
Beckoning them inside is XML. ODBMSes' capability to accommodate unique data in the hierarchical, object-oriented nature of XML-defined meta data, or intelligence about the kind of data residing therein, should help make ODBMSes a major tool for taming complex Web sites and moving important corporate data to the Web, experts said.
And this time, it may be relational DBMSes (RDBMSes) feeling the chill. Although object-oriented approaches are viewed as ideally suited to XML -- with its unlimited, developer-defined tags -- the tables, rows, and columns of traditional RDBMSes are ill-fitting.
"I think it's a matter of efficiency, compactness, and directness," said Rita Knox, vice president and research director at the Gartner Group, in Stamford, Conn. "It's not that these things can't be done with an RDBMS, it's just much more efficient with an ODBMS."
RDBMSes, for example, use rows and columns for every instance in the database, regardless of whether a particular cell is needed in a particular instance; ODBMSes only store the particular parts of the data actually used in any specific instance, Knox explained.
Two ODBMS vendors in particular -- Object Design and POET Software -- have moved very quickly to integrate XML into their products.
Object Design's eXcelon, which uses XML as its native document format, is being positioned as a mid-tier server that can bridge the XML-based worlds of the Web and traditional databases. The product began shipping in March.
POET's Content Management Suite, which is viewed as a Web-based server for technical and other complex documentation, works in conjunction with the company's Object Server 5.0 to manage the transfer of XML objects around the network.
While they may have a leg up on their larger competitors, ODBMS vendors will not necessarily have an easy time staving off an encroaching field of products gradually moving to incorporate XML technology.
"The key to the acceptance of these products is in establishing [a] competitive position with respect to other technologies that are coming forward," IDC's Olofson said.
Most prominently, ODBMS vendors will have to clearly distinguish their products from the XML efforts of Oracle and pre-relational database vendor Software AG, Olofson said.
The two database stalwarts, though, are taking different strategies in their support for the new language. Oracle is now providing hybrid object-relational facilities that support XML in Oracle8i, which began shipping this month. The company is also offering an XML parser for Java, which allows applications written in Java to parse data into XML, according to Oracle officials.
Other major database players, such as Informix, are also working to tie XML into object-relational DBMSes (ORDBMSes). In July, Informix will release an object-relational product code-named Centaur; however, the capability to render XML documents on the fly will not be added until later this year or early next year, Informix officials said.
Whether these hybrid technologies and the added layers for converting document formats will do more harm than good, however, still seems open to debate.
"I think ORDBMSes are less efficient than ODBMSes, but since lots of apps are written against RDBMSes, this may be a reasonable bridge approach between the two worlds," Gartner's Knox said.
But not all ODBMS vendors are rushing to embrace the standard. Objectivity, for example, will not support the markup language in its Objectivity/DB product until the standard makes its way into development initiatives such as Enterprise JavaBeans, according to company officials.
Furthermore, XML will have little effect on the object market until various industries can agree upon their respective Document Type Definitions (DTDs), a crucial value that describes how tags in XML documents should be interpreted, Objectivity representatives asserted.
"The first implementations of XML and DTDs don't stretch very far," said Ron Raffensperger, vice president of marketing at Objectivity.
XML proponents in the ODBMS community counter that such document definitions are more relevant to business-to-business transactions than to Web and electronic-commerce development in general.
"XML has so many more useful applications than just business to business," explained Coco Jaenicke, product marketing manager at Object Design, in Burlington, Mass.
Only time will tell if ODBMSes are up to the task of handling and integrating those myriad applications.
"The challenge for ODBMS vendors is to change their ways of doing business away from highly technical end-users and toward ISVs and system integrators," said IDC's Olofson. "They may have to develop more of [a] consulting business or align themselves with others who already offer extensive services."
Brett Mendel is a free-lance writer based in San Francisco.
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